In the 40 years I've been voting, every time anybody runs for President, he ends up talking about what he'll do - or what we need to do - "to restore America to greatness".
When you say something like that, doesn't it have to mean you think America is a pretty crappy place right now? I know it's just a rhetorical gimmick, but it seems like whoever says that kind of thing will always also say that he's 'plain-spoken'; that he says what he means and means what he says, and blah blah blah. And then he'll turn around and say that the US is - not was, and not will be - but is the greatest.
So when do we get a guy who does actually give it to us straight? We don't. Well, we did let that guy in a coupla times. Bobby Kennedy grabbed us by the collar in 1968 and made us look directly at our own shittiness in places like Appalachia and Viet Nam - we felt so bad about it, we had to shoot him in the head, and then vote for Nixon so we could get us a little law and order up in here. We went back to the well in 1976 but that guy turned out to be Jimmy Carter, who also told us way too much truth about way too many things that really bummed us out. Carter managed to avoid being shot in the head by being extraordinarily adept at shooting himself in the foot - but anyway, we went back to voting for guys who knew how to wave the Big American Dick; guys who could help a bunch of petting zoo ponies pretend to be racing studs.
They lie to us because we insist on it.
Jan 11, 2012
Jan 10, 2012
Pots And Kettles
I couldn't look at this and not see people like Willard and Lil' Newt.
(hat tip = Balloon Juice)
(hat tip = Balloon Juice)
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Jan 9, 2012
If I Hafta Tebow 'Round The World
(my sincerest apologies to Marvin Gaye for the title)
Cults of personality are occasionally interesting, sometimes powerful, often dangerous - and generally hard not to watch.
Cults of personality are occasionally interesting, sometimes powerful, often dangerous - and generally hard not to watch.
Especially when they're more than a little weirdly ironic.
Smoke And Mirrors
I've been noticing lately that the officiating in the NFL has been something less than stellar. This isn't a terribly new thing. The players get bigger and faster, and the game speeds up, and it can take a while for the Stripes to catch up - pretty simple formula. What really bugs me tho' is that I don't see any of the blown calls on any of the highlite shows, and I never hear any of the commentators talking about it either. It starts to look a lot like a media blackout.
I'm not saying the games are rigged, but I will say that in the absence of scrutiny, the potential for dastardly behavior will flourish in sports, business, government, religion, whatever.
Connecting those dots with any of these other dots may a bit of a stretch, but it feels like there's a real corollary at work here.
(hat tip = HuffPo)
I'm not saying the games are rigged, but I will say that in the absence of scrutiny, the potential for dastardly behavior will flourish in sports, business, government, religion, whatever.
Connecting those dots with any of these other dots may a bit of a stretch, but it feels like there's a real corollary at work here.
(hat tip = HuffPo)
Jan 8, 2012
Chickens Come Home To Roost
Gee - it's just like 1970 again. The cops are not your friends...
(hat tip = The Agonist)
From care2 make a difference:
(hat tip = The Agonist)
From care2 make a difference:
Sometime between the time he was arrested on March 27, 2009 around 2:00 p.m., and March 31 at 1:23 p.m. when he was pronounced dead, Christie had been sprayed with ten blasts of pepper spray, also known as OC (Oleo-resin Capsicum), which is a derivative of cayenne pepper....and the world is a ghetto.
Jan 7, 2012
Romney Is As Romney Does
via Wonkette:
We've been told for a very long time that 'creative destruction is the natural order of things'; that if we go against the forces of the Free Market we'll only get bad results from our good intentions.
(I realize giving Romney et al the benefit of the doubt here is a huge strain on credulity, but I need to bypass the demonization for a moment. Besides, I imagine it'll be a good long time before we see a shortage of opportunities to call him names.)
Anyway - the intent was not to stiff these guys and put them out of work. The intent was to make the company more efficient - more competitive in a global market, to help it evolve, and thus at least to survive long enough to hire these guys back; or to thrive in a way that pumps enough dollars into the local economy so other companies could hire them. That's how it's supposed to work. That was the intent.
But I can't look at what actually happened to the people who made up that company and then make any credible claim that 'capitalism didn't fail those people, they failed capitalism'.
So if our intentions were good, and we got bad results anyway, then we have to examine our Methods and Practices to find better ways of doing things.
We've been told for a very long time that 'creative destruction is the natural order of things'; that if we go against the forces of the Free Market we'll only get bad results from our good intentions.
(I realize giving Romney et al the benefit of the doubt here is a huge strain on credulity, but I need to bypass the demonization for a moment. Besides, I imagine it'll be a good long time before we see a shortage of opportunities to call him names.)
Anyway - the intent was not to stiff these guys and put them out of work. The intent was to make the company more efficient - more competitive in a global market, to help it evolve, and thus at least to survive long enough to hire these guys back; or to thrive in a way that pumps enough dollars into the local economy so other companies could hire them. That's how it's supposed to work. That was the intent.
But I can't look at what actually happened to the people who made up that company and then make any credible claim that 'capitalism didn't fail those people, they failed capitalism'.
So if our intentions were good, and we got bad results anyway, then we have to examine our Methods and Practices to find better ways of doing things.
Jan 6, 2012
Is This Heaven? No, It's Iowa
Santorum lost by 9 votes - here's how it happened (via Crooks and Liars).
Both Sides
Seems to me:
Dems tend to use polls to figure out what We The People are thinking, and where we might wanna go if somebody actually stood up and decided to lead us somewhere. Maybe that's partly why the Repubs hate calling them democrat-ic. Anyway, Repubs seem to use their polling to help them decide how to attack public opinion in order to change it enough to suit their agenda.
However slight you believe them to be, there are differences.
d r i f t g l a s s has a good look at it from a wider perspective (quoting a piece from truthout.com):
d r i f t g l a s s has a good look at it from a wider perspective (quoting a piece from truthout.com):
But both parties are not rotten in quite the same way. The Democrats have their share of machine politicians, careerists, corporate bagmen, egomaniacs and kooks. Nothing, however, quite matches the modern GOP.
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